About book Plenty More: Vibrant Vegetable Cooking From London's Ottolenghi (2014)
I'm a huge Ottolenghi fan, so I grabbed this cookbook from the library for the winter holiday, went to the market, and dove right in.The photography is beautiful--and helpful. Since many of his recipes try new ingredients or are a dish I'm not familiar with, the photos are not just gorgeous, but super helpful. Those recipes without a photo were skipped right over (only 3 weeks with the library book!). The cookbook is all veggies, and as an ex-vegetarian, I really loved that it managed to encompass so many different kinds of foods--roasted, steamed, sweetened, etc. It was a great showing.While there are some outlandish ingredients (barberries?) some are just a little exotic / something I don't always have on hand and easy to find (pomegranate molasses, whole mustard seeds). The head notes are fun and thoughtful--I loved the notes on Ruth Reichl particularly because I recently read one of her memoirs. The instructions are easy to follow, which is nice. As always in an Ottolenghi recipe, there are lots of elements, which I'll talk about below. I didn't mind, but I did put aside significant time to try these. They're REAL cooking.3 recipes I've tried so far:-The root vegetable pie, I actually just made the filling and served it over basmati rice, as he suggestedThis was DELICIOUS. In fact, I just had the last bit for lunch at my desk and couldn't believe how well the flavors and colors stood up to a couple days in the fridge. I loved the mix of root veg with the curry flavors. The sweetness of the root veg really evened out the curry nicely. The flavor made this recipe a keeper. The time it took t chop everything was a lot, but it was worth it. I chopped potato, onion, crushed garlic, chopped parsnip, carrot and herbs... I watched an episode of Elementary while cooking this dish! It ended up being just delicious. A perfect main course and great leftovers.-The Brussels sprout risottoI made this as suggested and to the T. No altering here! It was good, but it was really time-intensive. And I don't usually fry, so that was an added element here. The ingredients were pretty normal, nothing crazy. The shredding of the sprouts I might do in a food processor next time, that was a little time intensive. It was a typical risotto with a great addition of lemon rind (I accidentally ate a piece, very floral...) and shredded sprouts, and fried sprout quarters. The cheese added was blue, I used Trader Joes and I think the recipe would have benefited from something a little more exciting. It was good, but the dishes and time meant it was a one-time dinner. Not making that again. Also, it made a TON of risotto, so best made for a crowd of 4+ Risotto isn't so great left over...-The honey roasted carrot with tahini yogurtYum--unexpected and delicious. The coriander and cumin seeds were a little tricky--I have them, but not as seeds. Otherwise, pretty normal ingredients unless you don't keep tahini on hand. Again, lots of chopping, but just do it as you're watching a show and you're good to go. I really enjoyed this.There are a bunch more recipes I'd like to try, I flagged them... might just need to invest in this cook book for my shelf! I am a sucker for vegetarian cookbooks. They appeal to my utter lack of sense in being able to put a meal together in any coherent way combined with my desire to do so. Meat-based dishes are easy: identify meat, pick how you do it, then add some veg and carb. The veg and carb can afford to be fairly baseline, although clearly there are heights of sophistication you can achieve there.Vegetarian? It's all a bit more freeform. Although you can have a central dish, it lends itself more easily to a series of dishes which go together as equals. And that means you can pick a few that you like which kind of go together in tone and/or region, balance up the food groups, and everything will be fine.My wife might disagree.I'm also a nut for tabbing up cookbooks with Post-It notes as I browse, leaving often either a bristling carpet of delights or a few lonely disconsolate highlights. Fortunately Plenty More is firmly in the former category.And I've even persuaded the wife, who knows far more about these things than I do, that some of them might work on the kids: baked orzi seems a good mutation on pasta bake, and pea and mint croquettes involve a combination of familiar flavours brought together to make something just this side of exotic.Plus there are some wacky dishes there involving silly made-up ingredients that obviously don't really exist: pass the za'atar, would you? Oh darling, we've run out of verjuice! Damn it, why can one not get buna-shimeji mushrooms on a Saturday afternoon past 4pm in this city?
Do You like book Plenty More: Vibrant Vegetable Cooking From London's Ottolenghi (2014)?
There weren't many recipes that I would try myself, but the pictures sure looked good!
—maren
Cooking my socks off and learning much about vegetarian recipes - Ottolenghi is ace!
—meeka
Yumm. Tagliatelle with walnuts, quinoa & fennl, gren bean with tahini.....
—melinda
More than the B-side to Plenty, it is it's equal.
—Yure
